La Caravella di Positano - Relais & Beach Reviews

Pros: - Beach front location although you don’t get a beach front view or porch unless you book their villas. - Very near the port and near all the beach front restaurants and activities. - They give you fresh towels and take out the trash every day. - Very nice staff. Cons: - We had to pay cash. Their terminal wasn’t working properly. We tried four cards in total which all worked fine everywhere else. So we had to find an ATM and withdraw money. - The toilet stinks. For some reason even after cleaning and even after turning the exhaust on, the stink doesn’t go away. - Poor drainage - water and dirt get stuck both in the shower and sink.

The location is good, you are right on the beach, but the staff who look after this property are very unfriendly. When we asked if we could leave our suitcases there for 2 hours longer and sunbathe outside, they refused. We had to leave the hotel at 12:00 and take our suitcases with us, which was very unaccommodating even though we offered to pay for it. The furnishings in the hotel are very old and the pillows are rock hard, as if there were only blankets in them. I would not recommend this hotel to anyone. 

The location of the accommodation is really great!! 👍🏻👍🏻 It's located right in front of the beach, and there's a music bar right in front of the accommodation, so you can listen to good music for free. I wonder if there is any accommodation in Positano with a better location. Air conditioning and refrigeration are both provided. It may be a bit difficult to find the entrance to the accommodation when checking in. The large yellow building is the accommodation, and the entrance is between the accommodation and the restaurant on the left side facing the accommodation. If you go through that iron door, you will find the accommodation! The host is an old lady named Rossa, and although she doesn't speak English very well, she tries to explain things as kindly and easily as possible. When I said I wanted to use porter service on the day of check-out, they made a reservation for me. I was worried because there were a lot of bad reviews, but it was really good. It was the best accommodation, so beautiful and nice. We also upgraded our room. Everyone, make your accommodation reservations :) I miss the kind rossa. The location of the accommodation is really the best!! 👍🏻👍🏻 It is located right in front of the beach, and there is a music bar right in front of the accommodation, so you can listen to good music for free. I wonder if there is a better accommodation than this.

The location is very good! good environment! Very clean and good service!

The location of the residence is the best. At the beach, in the town center, close to restaurant, port, shops. The rooms are spacious, clean but the buliding was built and furnitured in old style. If you are looking for luxory thant it is not for you. But if you can accept the south italian lifesyle than it is a good family run chouse for you. The manager, Mario was extremly helpful with us to organise our program.

OMG this place is amazing! We have never had a better hotel room. Here we are, right on the beach with such a great vibe. Reviews from other people on TripAdvisor were off putting but trust me when I say that Rosa and Mario are good people. They are operating a successful hotel business in a crazy popular location and occasionally things go wrong due to the unique pressures of the super busy location. Be nice to Rosa - say Ciao! - and she'll be nice to you. And Mario is super professional and helpful. If you can afford to stay here, it's the best location in all of Positano. We can't wait to come back and say Ciao! once more.

I give this place a 0. If it’s true good to be true then is not!! This should be the name of this hotel We booked the penthouses top room for a 4 night stay. When we arrived we were met by the manager”Rosa” she was rude from the moment we entered, we got worried when she took us the laundry room to check in . After paying the city tax and coping our passports . We went up stairs. They took us to a completely different room then what we booked when i showed Rosa the room we booked she acted like she didnt care and told us this is what we get and there is no refunds . She kicked our bags in the room and then proceeded to get in a yelling fight with us. She made my wife completely uncomfortable after she started yelling at us and saying to beware when we were out the things could get stolen. At this point I demanded to talk to the owner “Mario” he just told us it’s too bad and thats the room we get and if we didnt like it tough luck. At this point my wife had gone to the room next door where a couple of women we here renting saying they had the same issue and couldn’t get involved because they had no other place to stay. After talking to Mario and demanding a refund he said they would not and he would have to sue him (we are in the process with the credit card company ) well at this point we did not feel safe staying there and felt if we left our room our belongings would not be safe. We ended up having to move hotels at a cost to us of 8K. As you know last minute booking in the amalfi can be very expensive . Lucky the hotel took pity on us and told us we were not the first ones with a story like this from this hotel. I wish I would have read the reviews before booking ………if its to good to be true then it probably isn’t!!. This is true here I believe any positive reviews here are from friends or family . We travel a lot this is the worst experience we have ever had in 40 plus years of traveling. Im not even going into how dirty the room and hotel is good luck if you plan on staying here just remember a lot of reviews told you not too!!!

Excellent location to the beach and the main attractions and Rosa is a wonderful woman who runs a business but is also flexible. The Pros I found are that the hotel has its own beach chairs provided for its guests, no need to pay $25 for a chair. This is prime location for enjoying the beach. The scene is amazing and people with be taking picutres of you hanging out on your balcony all day. There are only 2 negatives we experienced on this stay, the shade umbrellas did not work, there was a review that touched on this and we figured they would have been fixed by now. If they working it would have greatly increased our enjoyment because the sun is blazing at times. The second negative is the restaurant L'incanto likes to play music extremely loud at random times of the night up to midnight. DO NOT eat there or drink there, it is a tourist trap with high priced low quality food and drinks. Otherwise our stay was enjoyable for a couple. We stayed for 3 nights and it was enough for this small town.

They are very nice. The “beach view” isn’t really a view and the bed is super uncomfortable. Barely slept. But you cannot beat the location. Right on the beach with own shade and chairs.

Avoid this property at all costs! The owner Mario is a heartless person. I do not want this happening to anyone with children in my life. After advising Mario that the train lines were severely my delayed in Napoli due to earthquakes, I took it upon myself to get at driver from Florence to Positano paying huge amount to try and meet the “check in” time of 9.00 pm. As much as the driver tried to get us there before 9.00 pm as Mario would not budge on the time saying if you are not there find other accommodation for the night. I pleaded with Mario to leave a key behind as I had fully paid $3700 for 5 nights accommodation. He refused. Was not accommodating at all. Long story short we had to park the van up on the hill I had to run down we kept him informed at ever stage, last one being the driver said to him to have some compassion as it’s two ladies from Australia with a child we may be 5 mins late he was ok with this long as not more. Our driver arrived home at 4am. I was 6 mins late. When I got to the property I actually didn’t know where he was we kept calling him constantly to see where he was. He left didn’t answer his phone. So here we were 2 girls and a tired child wondering what the hell to do. When to 15 different places whilst I had a meltdown as my anxiety kicked in. No where to sleep with so much luggage to carry up and down stairs. And no care in the world from him. Wrote to him today to tell him how disappointed and disgraced I was with him to be so un compassionate. Told him I wanted a refund and he said place is still available. But honestly how can you even go near the place or him after the treatment we go. For 6 minutes left destitute in Positano in peak season. Disgraceful. He shouldn’t even be operating.

Quaint, cutely decorated casita type hotel with nice patio, living room, kitchenette, bed and bath right on the beach. Unfortunately, the beach bar next door plays loud music nightly until midnight. Hotel did not include kitchen towels, soap, sponge, paper towels or wine glasses. For the nightly price, those items need to be included. Overall, we enjoyed our stay, which was four nights.

Communication with front desk is terrible. It was my 30th anniversary. The rooms AC was not working. Front desk gave us fans. It was the middle of summer. I got in touch with ******* and they denied ******* of anyone complaining on AC not working. We understand sometimes things break and stop working but not to try to fix it and find a solution and lie about no one complaining is not acceptable. They did not care to refund us any amount. It is NOT worth the MONEY. I DO NOT recommend this stay. I want at a partial refund.

This place is an absolute dive. Avoid at all costs. When we were taken to the laundry / HSK room to check-in, I should have realised something was up. I think I have figured out how this works, although unfortunately too late. The 'Residence' has some lovely beach facing rooms and they are banking on these and their location for their reputation and the prices they charge. The mountain view rooms on the other hand have been left to rot. There is black mould throughout the bathroom, shelves and lamp shades. The full sized fridge is a bar fridge, and the wardrobe is a TV cabinet they've put a hanging rail in. The biggest issue with all of this though is the price they are charging (around $900AUD a night) for this dump. And when you go to talk to anyone about it - there is no one to be found. When I found Rosa on our second night smoking her cigarette at the entrance, she laughed in my face and walked away. I rang the office on our first morning to see if there was another room we could move to. They told me only 'Geraldo' could help and he started in 30mins. I rang back then and they said he was now going to start 2 hours later. We were going to be on a boat then so told them we could talk when we got back. I rang on our return that afternoon to be told he had left for the day. I finally got hold of him on our last morning when he said, 'Too bad' and hung up on me. I tried to call back and they rejected my call. They are charging the ludicrous rates they are hoping that travelers will equate cost with quality - but rest assured it is anything but. We checked out a day early as it was that bad, but trying to get a refund is harder than pulling teeth. They have a reputation already in Positano. They know what they are doing and have no plans to stop provided they can continue to trick visitors to pay. upfront for non-refundable rates. Please steer clear and give your $$$ to a more reputable hotel! The beach front location isn't worth it. Accurate photos of our stay provided.

My husband and I spent 3 nights at La Caravella. Our villa was spacious, clean and had a balcony overlooking Spiaggia Grande. We enjoyed the location because it was ideally located in close proximity of the harbor and wonderful restaurants. The building itself is a residence villa located on the beach. I imagine at one time it may have been a private luxury home. Now, there are a handful of rooms and apartments in it. You will most likely meet the manager, Rosa, upon arriving. She is old time Italian and can come across as curt to some because she speaks little English. She knows more English than we know Italian. We enjoyed our encounters with her and wished we could have fluid conversations. Kindness is universal. If you experience a language barrier, just be patient and kind and use a language translation app if needed. We did feel like those staying at La Caravella are repeat visitors which we hope to be.